Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1887-05-19
GRASS AND GLOVER.


postant Agricultural Topse.
The prevalent belief that grass and
clover cannot be sown without grain
crop is. or should be, now obsolete Is
is out of date. and relic of old times.
when. perhaps the exuberance of fer
tility in the soil made it possible to
grow two crops at the same time. But
to say that small grains must be grown
at a loss for the purpose of sowing,
grass and clover seed with them, in
wolves two errors. In the first place.
wheat, oats and barley need not be
grown at loss in any part of North
America. There is profit in crop of
small grain even at low prices. The,
loss is in growing half or quarter of n
crop. A man who can work for two or
three dollars . day, but who really
works but half or quarter of day,
or who loses three or four DAYS in a.
week. might as well complain that he.
can not live at this rate of pay and do
mand raise to FIVE dollars. In the.
same way, a farmer who grows only
twelve bushels of wheat or twenty of
oats per acre should complain of his
own bad management rather than of
the market price of his produce. In
the second place. if y farmer desires to
SOW grass and clover seed, he may
pillow and harrow and manure the land,
and put it in as good condition as pos
sible. and then sow his seed rs early
US possible on the mellow. compactly
narrowed soil, with the certainty of
getting crop of hay in the fall. or at
crop the next year.
Is clover Il perennial? 1t is classed
by botanists Us biennial or short
perennial. 1t seems, however, that
this depends somewhat upon the char
acter of the soil. When the land is
poor and the clover is weak it is UNI
able to maintain itself beyond the Sec
ond year. but on good rich land it will
continue for several years. The writer
sowed clover and timothy four years
ago upon fairly good land-good
enough to bring fifty bushels of corn
to the acre-and the present spring the
clover made luXuriant stools from the
old roots, while the young plants are
showing abundantly from the seed left
in the aftermath of last year. There
is no doubt that clover will last ut least
five or six years from one seeding if
the land is rich; and may be made Il
perennial crop if it Is permitted to re-
seed itself every fall by leaving the
aftermath on the ground or pasturing
it off with cows or young cattle. The
writer's field above referred to, of
twenty acres, carried thirteen head of
young cattle and cows on pasture from
October until the snow covered it in
January. and it promises Il heavier
crop of hay than any previous one.
Grown with timothy, and cut when in
full bright blossom. the hay surpasses
any other winter fodder for all kinds of
farm stock.
Two much neglected grasses are tall
oat grass and meadow fescue. The frs
is called in the West, evergreen grass.
and the latter in the South, English blue
grass. They are both early kinds. af-
ford good pasture, make good, sound.
heavy hay, and recover quickly from
the cutting, so as to give fall pasture
for stock. The former. known as
Acena sidtiOr or 44rrhenatherum aren-
oceuni, has Il rather coarse heritage and
grows we'll on dry uplands; on good
soil it has produced over three tons of
hay to the acre and has more aftermath
than almost every other variety; as
much as $4,000 pounds of green after
growth having been estimated on the
land which gave the field of hay men-
toned. The latter succeeds best on
low bottom lands or drained sloughs-
and swamps. 1t is perennial grass.
and if top-dressed reasonably often, will
for many years rs productive
as at first. The largest recorded prod
uce of an acre has been more than
three and quarter tons of hay and an
abundant aftermath for pasture. This
grass rapidly deteriorates in value after
being when ripe only one
third rs nutritious as when in flower.
farmers. who grew it largely.
have gathered twenty-four bushels Of
seed per acre, which sells at $l.50 per
bushel in the open market and retailG
at 81 per bushel.-N Y. Times